Father's Day for Me

Father's Day is a bit different for me. I actually have 3 fathers. There is my birth father that I am currently searching for in order to understand my health and lineage. L R Stone is still the strong lead and I think he is in California still. I tried calling phone numbers, emailing all kinds of email addesses, and messaging on Facebook but have not had much luck getting a response. 

My second father is my adopted father, Lloyd John Burkholder. Everyone called him Bud. Bud was in World War II as a cook in the Navy. He met my Mom by going the the Navy facility in Battle Creek, Michigan where my Mom grew up. When the war ended he came back and married her, had Gary John, and Janeen Lou and then 13 years after Jan, adopted a 6 month old John Henry (me). Much like me, he got bored easily and felt it was time to move on from place to place setting up and selling off bakeries across the US. Clinton was the last bakery though. My Mom had found a place she liked, made friends, and wanted to provide a single stable household for "Johnny". She didn't want to move. Lloyd had a temper and had mental challenges. The conversation went very badly. When I was 6, Lloyd started the car in the garage and closed the garage door. 

I remember shadows of Lloyd. I remember riding around the back area of the bakery on my tricycle. I remember Lloyd first putting drum sticks in my hand and teaching me the mechanics of a trap set. I remember his crew cut hair cut. I remember him forcing me to sit at the table and cry because I wouldn't eat the tomatoes... To this day, I don't eat uncooked tomatoes. Other than that though, Lloyd holds no significance in my life. My father picked up that baton. 

Even though it was a struggle for me to realize it, John Carlyle Doyle was my father. Not by marriage, because my Mom never married him until after I went into the Air Force. He was my father because he was there. He was engaged. John filled that roll from when I was 8 years old. He took me to the baseball games. 

He was hands off for discipline (my Mom handled that), but was there to help with the important lessons. Lessons like respect. Even though he would act like a racist ass born in 1916, he would still treat each individual with respect. As he aged though, I learned the racism was not as much to heart as he led on. He would often provoke me into heated debates just to listen to what I had to say. His racist comments often provoked such things. He taught me to think for myself. He always said that you can't take everything someone says as the truth, and something everyone says as the truth.  Later I read the same thing on a statue on the Clinton square. 

He taught me that growing old doesn't mean you have to grow up. This was ever so suttle. Every day... Without missing one episode, he watched the Flintstones. He had seen the same episodes hundreds of times, but every time he would laugh. My favorite memory was when I bought a movie for him and played it for the first time. Home Alone made him laugh so hard I thought we were going to need to call a doctor. I had never seen him laugh to tears and this was truly my honor that I had with my Father. I did manage to tell him thank you for being a great Dad before his health started to decline. That was the point he could see that everything he did for me, was worth it. John died in 1999, shortly after meeting Andi. He liked her.

Now here I am. The father trying to teach lessons to my own children. Even though 3 if them have left the roost, I can only hope that some of the lessons I have taught, have value to them. I love then all.